I'm currently sitting in the airport in Paris waiting to board the first of two flights home to Sydney. I have decided that there will be a series of blog posts about what I took away from Practical Pedagogies because there is simply too much to put into one blog post!

My first take away, however, isn't from any of the sessions or keynotes that I attended at the conference, but simply just the venue. The conference was held at the International School of Toulouse (IST). Toulouse is about 680km from Paris and is the home to 'Air Bus', the company that makes the A380 that I'm about to board!

The IST is an international school that caters for students from kindergarten all the way through to senior secondary. They offer the (I)GSCE as well as IB to their high school students and there is also a German school on site.

My #1 take-away from the school was the vast amount of student work on display. Every corridor and wall was adorned with amazing examples of what goes on in the classrooms at IST. There were displays of posters, artwork, books, models - you name it, it was there. It really made me realise how ineffective our corridors are being used at my current school. We have walls and walls of space that could be being used to showcase students achievements in the classroom, but they have nothing - just blank!

The second part of my first take away is that each teacher had their own room. This is something that I dream of in Australia. Each classroom had it's own style, with amazing displays that were created for each particular subject area that was being taught in there. Some of the displays looked like they belonged in museums they were so engaging and detailed.

When teachers have ownership of their rooms they are able to make them an extension of the lessons that they are teaching. Students are able to look around and be inspired by what they see and use these extra pieces of information to help them to delve deeper into what they are learning. Word walls, shelves with copious amounts of books for extra research and posters are just a few of the things I saw while visiting IST.

I like the idea that you thought of how schools can use their halls. I think that not all schools are able to maximize the use of their facilities. When you walk down the halls of schools, you always get bored because the walls are blank. So to put up students' artworks for everyone to see is such a great idea! Passerbys will not get bored and the school gets to showcase the talent of their students. It will also allow students to feel appreciated.

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Kelly Hollis

A high school science and Biology teacher in Sydney, Australia. #aussieED co-founder. Interested in the integration of ICT into the Science curriculum.